Letter carrier Kim Rose, who has worked for the Postal Service for 17 years, drops some letters into a mailbox on Bumps River Road in Osterville.

Cape reacts to postal cutbacks

By MARY ANN BRAGG

mbragg@capecodonline.com

February 07, 2013 - 2:00 AM

The coming loss of Saturday mail delivery to street addresses, announced Wednesday by Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, has received mixed reviews among Cape Cod residents.

"If it saves $2 billion a year to help the Postal Service, I think it's definitely worth it," "‰West Yarmouth resident Barry Lewis said in front of his house Wednesday.

Lewis' wife, Leah, wasn't so sure. "It does matter if a paycheck comes on Saturday," she said.

But letter carrier and union steward Michael Canty, representing more than 35 postal workers in the South Yarmouth area, said Wednesday the cut would cause job losses and poor service, especially with Monday holidays, and cut a lifeline to some on his South Yarmouth route who rely on him for human contact.

"If I don't show up every day, they wouldn't see anybody," Canty, a representative of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said.

The Postal Service will permanently end Saturday mail delivery to street addresses starting the first week of August, but continue to deliver packages — medicine, for example, Postal Service regional spokeswoman Christine Dugas said Wednesday. Post offices will still remain open Saturdays, and mail will still be delivered to post office boxes, Dugas said.

A plan to cut Saturday letter delivery has brewed since at least 2010 as a way to save money on expenses such as vehicle maintenance, staffing and fuel, Dugas said Wednesday. Four surveys since 2010 have bolstered the idea that people would prefer to defer mail delivery on Saturday — if they had to choose a day of the week, she said.

The Postal Service expects that about 35,000 jobs could be eliminated nationally because of the cut in service, but those would likely occur through attrition, she said. The Postal Service has about 500,000 employees. On Cape Cod, mail delivery is a mix of letter carriers on foot, as in Provincetown, to postal trucks putt-putting their way along lakefront streets, as in West Yarmouth.

U.S. Rep. William Keating, D-Mass., denounced the service cut as hitting rural areas hard and putting jobs at risk. Keating called mail delivery a fundamental government service.

"I am even more troubled that this is one step closer to a total end of all Saturday service," Keating said in a statement Wednesday. "If I — and many other residents who work full time — cannot pick up our mail during the weekday work hours and post offices start closing on Saturday, how are we supposed to get our mail?"

Canty added that federal requirements to pre-pay health insurance costs for Postal Service retirees, which he said amounted to billions of dollars annually, has saddled the service with costs that it can't bear even as other parts of the business — such as package delivery — are flourishing.

Canty also questioned whether just delivering packages on Saturdays, rather than letters and packages, satisfied what he said was a federal mandate for six-days-a-week mail service.

"This maneuver by Mr. Donahoe flouts the will of Congress, as expressed annually over the past 30 years in legislation that mandates six-day delivery," National Association of Letter Carriers President Fredric Rolando said in a statement Wednesday.

"It's against federal law," Canty said.

On the streets of Barnstable and Yarmouth on Wednesday, one person worried about pensioners not receiving their checks on Saturdays. Another worried letter carriers could lose their jobs, and still others worried that the foundation of a national institution like the Postal Service was being shaken.

Robert Phear of Hyannis told the Times by phone that he usually gets mail at a post office box, rather than having it delivered to his condominium. But he said he would prefer that the Saturday delivery stay as it is. Congress is limiting the agency's actions, knowing full well that it must make money to exist, Phear said.

"I worry about this place," Penney Stone of Yarmouthport said outside that village's post office. Her father worked for the post office, and she said she strongly supported the idea of a national postal service and wouldn't want the Saturday service cut, especially given people who work all week and can run errands only on weekends. Stone suggested expenses could be cut in other areas.

At the Hyannis post office, Lynn Remick didn't like the idea of an end to Saturday service because she said she already doesn't get her mail delivered until 4 p.m. Remick said that having to wait until 4 p.m. every Monday would force her wait to respond to mail until Tuesday.

"I like receiving my mail (at home) on Saturday," Jean Samedy of Hyannis said outside the Hyannis post office, although his wife, Katsiaryna Tsybulskaya, said it wouldn't matter since their bills are paid online.